


if i could buy forever at a price (i would buy it twice)

by thequeenofokay



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Immortality, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-01
Updated: 2015-04-01
Packaged: 2018-03-20 19:14:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3661767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thequeenofokay/pseuds/thequeenofokay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kara tries not to get attached, because she learned a long time ago – it can only hurt. No one else lasts forever.</p><p>(She’s wrong.)</p><p>//immortals au.</p>
            </blockquote>





	if i could buy forever at a price (i would buy it twice)

**Author's Note:**

> \+ welcome to the karaskyeward trash can friends.
> 
> \+ title from "immortal" by marina + the diamonds. i'm fucking hilarious.

Kara’s been alone a long time. She doesn’t remember how long, exactly. She just remembers losing a lot of the people she once loved. She thinks she might lost some pieces of herself, too, along the way, but she doesn’t know who she was in the beginning anymore, so it’s hard to tell.

Maybe she lost herself the day Whitehall made her this way, anyway. Or maybe it was on the day he died.

She doesn’t mind it so much. She tries not to get attached, because she learned a long time ago – it can only hurt. No one else lasts forever.

(She’s wrong.)

She’s lost track of the day and the month and the year when she meets Grant. She should have realises so much earlier than she did, what he was. She should have known he couldn’t have become what he was in just one lifetime. He was too dark, had too many secrets. He didn’t smile often, and when he did, it held too much pain.

She loves him anyway. It’s a quiet, subtle sort of love that she hasn’t known in a long time. He’ll play at domestic with her for years and then fight wars with her. There’s a weight, in the back of her mind, always, that he’s going to have to leave her soon, but somehow she always manages to push it away.

She feels understood around him. She _should_ have seen it sooner.

But she’s been stuck in her own head for so long, she doesn’t recognise the signs. She’s been with him for thirty years before she notices he hasn’t changed a bit.

It’s not a slow realisation, but a sharp kick that comes on a dark night and leaves her reeling, speechless, staring at him.

He’s holding her arms, and she’s glad. She thinks she could fall to the concrete otherwise, but he’s grounding her.

‘You’re…’ she whispers.

He nods.

She stares a moment longer. ‘Did you find me because you knew I was the same?’ she asks.

He hesitates. She sees it. ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘I always knew what you were.’

Something breaks inside her then, and relief floods through her. She throws her arms around him. ‘I thought I was going to lose you,’ she says. She’s almost crying. She never has to be alone again.

‘What happened to you?’ she asks, her face still buried in his shoulder. ‘How did you get this way?’

She can feel a little jump in his heartbeat, a worry that she knows he’s trying to hide. He’s trying to repress the memories of his creation (destruction, depending on your point of view) as much as she is.

‘It was a long time ago,’ he says. ‘It was a long time ago and they said—’ He stops, pauses, and she doesn’t press. ‘He said they wouldn’t ever hurt me again.’

‘Did they?’ she asks.

Grant almost smiles. It’s too bitter to be real. ‘No one ever hurt me again, Kara,’ he says. ‘They couldn’t. You know that.’

(It’s almost a lie, because there’s so much that can hurt them. The catch is, none of it kills.)

‘I know,’ she agrees.

They stay there until dawn, still. (A few hours are nothing to them.)

 

*

 

It’s a while before they meet Skye. Kara’s got better at counting the years now there’s someone to count them with. She tries to keep track of at least the month and the holidays she’s supposed to be celebrating.

It’s New Year’s Eve when they meet Skye.

‘I’ve seen too many of these years,’ she tells them, like it’s a joke to strangers. She takes a drink. ‘But so have you two.’ She smiles, and it’s full of perfectly faked innocence.

She’s looks younger than they are. Her eyes still burn bright and she still _smiles_ , no matter how harsh it is, almost blinding under the fireworks.

Kara is less surprised, this time.

‘I know who you are,’ Skye says. Her voice drops down lower. ‘I saw you in a picture from the twenties.’ She grins, full on and innocence lost. ‘The dress looked great on you,’ she tells Kara.

‘You’re like us?’ Grant asks. He’s not really asking, though, and they all know it.

Skye nods slowly.

Kara leans closer into Grant. She feels she’s been with him long enough now to know what he’ll agree to.

‘Come with us,’ she says to Skye.

Skye laughs. ‘Is it a club?’ she asks. ‘For the undead?’

Kara can feel Grant frowning behind her, irritated, and it nearly makes her laugh. Nothing _irritates_ Grant. ‘We’re not _undead_ ,’ he corrects.

‘Fine,’ Skye says. ‘Immortal.’

‘ _No_ ,’ Grant says. ‘It’s just us.’

Skye’s expression turns a little more solemn. ‘I know,’ she says. ‘You’re the only others I’ve managed to find.’ She looks down, sighs softly. ‘And believe me, I’ve been looking for a long time.’

‘So you’ll come?’ Kara asks.

Skye nods. ‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘I’m coming with you.’

 

*

 

‘I’m glad you found me,’ she says, later. Much later. Years, maybe, once she has settled herself firmly into their lives. She sounds quieter than usual, too. Skye has been the one to brighten them up. Grant smiles more, now. Kara's glad of it. ‘I was really…’ She trails off, shaking her head slightly. 

‘Lonely,’ Kara supplies.

Skye nods. She settles herself between Grant and Kara, her head on Kara’s arm.

‘I don’t want to lose anyone else,’ she says. There’s something hurt in her voice that Kara doesn’t quite understand the root of yet.

She has an eternity for Skye to tell them, though.

‘We’re not going anywhere,’ Grant says. Kara can feel him shifting slightly so that his arm is around Skye’s shoulders.

Skye lets out a little noise. Her hands move, one to grip Kara, and the other probably holding onto Grant. ‘I won’t let anyone take you,’ she says, her hard defiance back in her voice. ‘I’d fight for you. You know that, right?’

‘We know,’ Grant says. ‘And no one could take us if they tried. We’ve been around a bit. We know how to fight hard.’

‘I know,’ Skye says. ‘I know, I just – everything always ended before this.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Kara murmurs, even though she does, every day. Every single day, that something will take the most precious things in her life – the only things in her life – from her. ‘We last forever, remember?’

 

*

 

(Nothing lasts forever.

Not today. Not until they’ve run away from Earth and seen the stars. They’re going to be around until the universe has turned to dust and they’re the only life left.

That’s what they tell themselves, at least. That’s how they manage to sleep at night.)


End file.
